Years ago, my wife, Amy, and 3 daughters, we buy this Christmas Tree. Now, I don’t know what your holiday traditions are and frankly, not to put too fine a point on it, if I’m not married to you, I don’t care. Even if I am married to you, I’m skeptical.
“Seriously? Pecans on the sweet potato casserole instead of golden roasted marshmallows? What is this, a Christmas dinner for homeless people? Oh, it is a Christmas dinner for homeless people. I see, look, I’m just gonna head over to my family’s house and hang out there, m’kay? I’ll save you some marshmallows.”
Anyway, back at the tree lot the Christmas Tree Carnies in their infinite wisdom long ago discovered that the absolute best way to attach the trunk of a tree to the top of a moving vehicle is with Dental Floss. (“Yarp, that’ll probably hold.”) But, because of an evolution of Alpine technology we have the dawn of a wondrous machine that creates a spiderweb Christmas tree placenta net thingie. Basically, it cocoons the tree nice and safe for the ride home.
Chalk one up for the Christmas Carnie Scientists.
So, we got the tree home, got the base attached, worked it free from the placenta cocoon — some hard core Christmas people will tell you to eat the placenta cocoon, grind it up and put it into some hot chocolate, for an extra powerful holiday boost, I can take or leave it.
Point is, we are poised to decorate.
Of course you have to start with the lights, those @#$% lights.
Christmas lights are honestly why we start the season immediately after the Fireworks back in July because it takes 4.5 months to untangle the ball, that wadded up tumbleweed of six gazillion lights.
We’re standing there and suddenly I hear something! Moving in the tree. Starts at the top and just, like an elevator, rustles down down down the tree, floor by floor, and I’m backing up the girls and all of a sudden. Bloop. There he is.
Our details begin to get fuzzy at this point because of the screaming and the running around — and my wife and kids were scared, too. Some witnesses estimate the beast at the size of a raccoon. Or a small dog like a Great Dane. My ex-wife maintains to this day it was a field mouse the size of a pinky. Who’s to say?!
Amy scooped up the 3 girls and rushed them upstairs. Which is not easy because they’re like 15, 13 and 11. I’m not sure at what point the vote was taken that I would be the vanquisher of this evil calf-sized intruder, but apparently I need to read the fine print of my “dad” contract.
So this mouse, nay this beast walks saunters struts out from under the tree. He looks at me, takes a puff from his cigarette and said, “American pig-dog. You want a piece of me, uh?”
He threw his cigarette down, ground it out INTO THE NEW CARPET.
He looked at me, I looked at him, like 10 minutes of closeups and harmonica music as if choreographed by Sergio Leone himself. My wife gathered the kids into her petticoat, a tumbleweed of christmas lights blew past. And then the clock tower began to toll!
And the vermin took off. Pew!
Now, the first time I caught him, I used the Art of War strategy I learned from the classic game, MouseTrap. I put the marble down the chute that rolled into the thing that kicked the other thing that made the big ball drop into the bath tub flipping the man into the barrel and the bucket slid nicely down right on top of him. Years of training, thank you, Milton Bradley.
But, then I got cocky, my friends. Glowing, out of breath, I called my kids down, “Who wants to see the mouse daddy caught?!” I slid a magazine under the bucket so I could flip it over and then took the magazine away. There he was. I thought he’d be scared, but he wasn’t. He lit up another cigarette. Looked up at me and chortled, snidely.
“Heh heh you pig-dog. I’ve got you right where I want you, Ha!”
So, what Milton Bradley fails to mention, and you can check the inside of the box, people – read all the directions, the English directions, the Spanish directions – what they fail to mention is the fact that a mouse can jump over 3 to 6 feet high.
None of those directions inside the box warn you about Bionic Anti-Gravity Mouse.
I don’t know if any of you have ever had a wild animal charge right toward you? Like through the air? Right at your face? If that happens, first piece of advice, maybe don’t use the 11 year old as a human shield. Maybe. That gets really confusing for kids later.
Anyway, at that point we became a full-on Tom and Jerry cartoon. Going round and round the house. There’s a moment when he’s inside the piano glissando’ing up the treble clef and I’m trying to hack him with some B-flat minor chords.
It was an epic struggle. Epic.
But, haha, the fact that I’m here telling you the story today tells you who won that battle. The mouse did. Dude, he owns that house. I moved to the West Coast and never looked back.
Actually, he and my ex-wife are dating now. The kids are happy. The mouse joined Facebook, he and I are friends now, it’s a whole thing.
The point is… this Christmas… always always ALWAYS put marshmallows on your sweet potato casserole.
Merry Christmas
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